Impact of harvest maturity on the aroma characteristics and chemistry of Cascade hops used for dry-hopping

Scott Lafontaine, Scott Varnum, Aurélie Roland, Stéphane Delpech, Laurent Dagan, Daniel Vollmer, Toru Kishimoto, Thomas Shellhammer

Food Chemistry: Volume 278, 25 April 2019, Pages 228-239

Acesso: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2018.10.148

Destaque

Pesquisa sugere que Cascade colhido mais tarde é mais adequados para uso em dry-hopping. É mais cítrico, possue mais quantidade de óleos essenciais e compostos voláteis de aroma. À medida que amadurecem, há uma alteração nos compostos de enxofre, tióis conjugados diminuem enquanto os tióis livres aumentam.

Resumo Abstract

The impact of ripening on the dry-hop aroma potential and chemical development of Cascade hops is not well understood. Therefore, 5–6 weekly hop samples were collected over the 2014, 2015 and 2016 harvests. Concentrations of humulones did not change as a function of harvest date, while total hop essential oil content displayed significant positive trends. Concentrations of thiol precursors decreased over harvest while concentrations of free thiols increased. These weekly samples were used to dry-hop an unhopped base beer. Overall hop aroma intensity and citrus quality attributed to beer during dry-hopping increased as a function of harvest date. These results suggest that for brewers to maximize the efficiency of hop usage, early harvested Cascades might be better for bittering, while, later harvested Cascades might be better for dry-hopping or aroma additions because they attributed more intense citrusy aromas to beer and had higher concentrations of free thiols and terpene alcohols.